Life on the road can create bleary eyes and blurry memories.

The effects from a restful All-Star break usually wear off within a week or two, and by the time August arrives, full-out fatigue has set in. Middle-of-the-night arrivals take on a whole new life when you’re four months into baseball season. You wake up in the morning and have no idea what city you’re in. You get back to the hotel after a game and can’t remember your room number.

Or, as illustrated in Raymond’s blog, you can pull a Bill “Brownie” Brown and try to use your Starbucks gift card to get into your hotel room, fail miserably, lug your belongings back to the front desk, pull out your driver’s license and get a new key, only to discover the original one would have worked just fine.

I kid because I care. And because I’ve been there before. A lot. Regardless of how spry and able-bodied you are, from time to time, you will have a senior moment. It’s not cause for alarm. It’s just that with around 60 games left in the season, baseball people start running on fumes. Some get through it better than others, but forgetfulness is a common symptom, across the board. It’s not so much, “What time is it?” as it is “What day is it?”

I recall one particularly harrowing roadie way, way back in 1999. The Astros played a Thursday night game in Arizona that, of course, went 11 innings, followed by an overnight flight to Kansas City. The buses pulled up to the hotel in Kansas City around 7 a.m. The sun was up. Rush hour traffic was in full force. And the Astros hadn’t been to bed yet.

I was working for the Astros’ media relations department at the time, and a local radio station that did a weekly segment with Ken Caminiti every Friday asked me to send along a message to Cammy to remind him to call in later that day. The hosts sensed that with the early morning arrival and no real concept of one day becoming the next, this could be an issue for the third baseman.

They were right. I saw Caminiti on the team bus and said, “Don’t forget to call the radio station for your show today.” He shook his and said, “I do the show on Fridays.” I said, “Cammy. It is Friday.”

Blank stare. Then a slap of the forehead. “Ohhhhhh….right.”

After the game, the team bus dropped us off at the hotel and I stood at the elevators, having no idea, at all, what floor I was on or what room I was in. That was the first time it happened. It most certainly wasn’t the last.

As recently as two years ago (or was it last year?) I worked a little later after a game at Wrigley Field, took a cab back to the hotel and couldn’t for the life of me remember what floor I was staying on. I stopped on six. Then eight. Then six again. I ran into Ed Wade on one of my stops and said, “I have absolutely no idea where I am.” He looked amused, but not surprised.

Finally I called the one person who I was certain would sympathize with my plight — Dave Raymond, of course. I asked him to look at the rooming list and tell me where to go.

I would have felt foolish, if not for the fact that I was fairly certain I wasn’t the only one who this happens to. Reading that it happens to people like the astute and organized Brownie was oddly comforting.

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How well you hold up during a season is largely contingent on how well your team is positioned in the standings. That’s just how it is. Losing has a ripple effect. When your team is not anywhere close to a pennant race, it’s hard to stay perky in August and September, even with Starbucks locations on every street corner across the country.

But when you’re winning? Man, oh man. Nothing can ruin the mood. Exhaustion? Bah. The one thing I remember better than anything else about that aforementioned 11-inning game in Arizona in ’99 was that the Astros lost that game, and just before they began the boarding process for their red-eye to Kansas City, Mike Hampton stopped, busted out with his best attempt at the moon walk, cracked up his teammates and THEN got on the plane. Extra-inning losses are a lot more tolerable when it’s the only game you’ve dropped in a week.

Later that season, the Astros swept a Montreal-Philadelphia road trip and ended up stuck on the tarmac for at least five hours, maybe more, due to torrential downpours. Problem? Nah. Some played cards. Others watched movies. The broadcasters engaged in their usual two-hour fantasy baseball debate. Bench coach Matt Galante and I went toe-to-toe in a makeshift baseball trivia contest. We had pizzas delivered to the plane (this was pre-9/11) and everyone remained, for the most part, exceedingly happy.

That’s what happens when your team is in a pennant race. Baseball is fun. You like your colleagues. You can’t wait to get to the ballpark the next day.

When you’re losing…well, let’s just say the countdown to October takes on an entirely different meaning.

6 Comments

It is definitely difficult for the families of the players but being part of the media is at a different level since it is your job to be there through it all. I can’t imagine having to travel so much and honestly I am relieved when the road trips come, at times, so that I can take a breather.

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